Clinics inoculate 1,200 against flu

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Linda Redeffer ~ Southeast Missourian

Health officials in Cape Girardeau County say they believe everyone in the area who was entitled to a flu shot has by now probably got one. Health department director Charlotte Craig said she does not plan to order any more, and Helen Sander of the Visiting Nurses Association said she has already declined to order flu vaccine for January.

Both agencies' officials made their statements Friday after inoculating about 1,200 people at two separate clinics. The nurses association has 400 doses left that it will dispense Wednesday beginning at 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., or until there is no more.

Those who got out early Friday lined up at the Osage Community Centre to get one of 600 flu shots the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center was offering. The doses were gone by 11 a.m.

"It went like clockwork," Craig said. The public health director said 200 shots were given in the first 50 minutes.

Those who arrived late ended up driving up Mount Auburn to the Visiting Nurses Association, which had 1,000 doses. The association originally started with 200 doses, but got another 800.

Sander said she orders flu shots for Visiting Nurses Association clinics in a 15-county area. The extra vaccine came from clinics with a surplus, which she used at the clinic Friday.

Throughout Friday afternoon, Sander said, people weren't waiting in line, but a steady stream of people came to the association for a shot.

Shirley KIossman-Moore of Cape Girardeau said she had been waiting since October to get a flu shot.

"My doctor wanted me to get one, but she didn't have any," Klossman-Moore said.

Klossman-Moore claims several medical problems, and seemed relieved when the nurse giving the shot told her that she would be immune from the flu within two weeks.

Lisa Burkhart of Cape Girardeau is in the high-risk group that federal officials said earlier in the fall should get a flu shot.

"I have heart disease, I had a heart attack and I have diabetes," Burkhart said.

Her mother-in-law told her about the nurses association clinic, she said.

Dorothy Black of Oran, Mo., arrived late at the Osage Centre. Then she heard about the nurses association.

"I've been waiting for someone to get the vaccine," she said. "My doctor didn't have any in his office."